8/6/07

I have enough running and driving vehicles that I could drive a different one to work each day of the week. In fact, I drove all five of my running and driving vehicles over the course of the weekend. Here’s the poop. Saturday morning I went to the shop and signed the papers for the spot between the shop and the houseboat. I then went back to await Gregg's call to go look at/get those RX-7s. I figured he’d call and then come to the shop to get me so I got to work installing the intake on Fifi. It went on without too much hassle. I did have to scrounge the four nuts and bolts to attach the mass air sensor to the adapter and used a judicious amount of silicone on the intake air temperature sensor to make it seal, but all in all the installation was pretty easy. Oh, the flipping great hole I mentioned before, that was for the intake air temperature sensor. The kit came with a grommet but the holes, in the pipe and the grommet, were both a bit on the generous side. I'm pretty sure the grommet seals in the pipe but I did use the aforementioned silicone between the sensor and the grommet. Anyhoo, I got all of that installed and went for a quick micro-hoon to test it out. It seemed to make a bit of difference, I guess. It’s probably the “butt-dyno” fooling me again with wishful thinking though. So I get back and meet Marty Smith in front of his shop. I tell him I'm going to try and install the lowering shackles and he offers me some heavy duty (tee hee, doody!) jack stands. I take them back to my shop and back the truck in. Gregg calls to say he’s on his way with the first RX-7. I tell him the spot is ready for them and that I'm about to install the shackles. “Oh man,” he says. “I didn’t know you were going to ‘Shaq Attack’ the thing!” I jack the ass of the truck up and try to place the stands. No can do. The frame is a good foot higher than the stands will extend. I try to set the stands farther forward but then the truck pivots back onto its wheels and negates the whole effect of the stands. I decide that I can’t do the job with the tools at hand. Marty Smith calls to see how I'm doing and I tell him. We decide to try and use the lift at GDRA (I know it is LRA now but I'm going to continue to call it GDRA thank you very much) in the morning. I pull the truck out and park it to wait for Gregg. He and Dave arrive with the first car and I have a look at it. It is in decent shape for one of “two cars for $500.00” sort of thing. We unload it and look it over for a bit. It will probably make a decent enough racecar. We start to load into Gregg's truck to get the other when I notice it isn’t an extended cab. I don’t want to ride “bitch” so I say I'll follow in Fifi. We head for Arlington. We get to the place where the car is stored and have a look. I'm glad this one didn’t arrive first because it is much worse off than the first car. This is a donor for sure. Apparently it has a good engine though, unlike the other car. So we load it on the trailer, which is no mean feat due to (tee hee, doo-doo!) the fact that the driver’s side tie rod is missing. The steering wheel will turn the passenger side wheel but the driver’s side has to be kicked into the direction you want to travel. We get it on the trailer and tied off then head off for fuel, both in the trucks and ourselves. We have Taco Bueno for lunch and then roll west. At the gas station, Gregg asks if I'm willing to take the Seven over to his boss’s house to show it to him. I say I can and we formulate another plan. Gregg will drop Dave off at home and then meet me at my shop. We’ll drop the RX-7 and then go see the boss. I head for the shop to get the Seven ready. I roll it out and wait for Gregg. He arrives and browbeats me into driving the thing across town to Kennedale. I agree once I remember that we can take 1187 across and forego the freeway. We both hop in and head that way. We get to the dude’s house and he looks the car over. As I'm about to take him for a ride, his wife asks him to go to the liquor store for some wine. I say we can do that, and we do. While I'm waiting for him, I notice that I'm running a bit rich. I didn’t do anything about it other than make the mental note. I take him home and Gregg hops back in. We head back to the shop and I leave him to find his own way out. I'm supposed to meet family at 1800 h for dinner and it is 1730 h when I drop off Gregg. I rush home and take a shower then head to the restaurant in the Seven. I eat with family and then take the really long way back to the shop to park the Seven. Sunday I head to the shop to get Marty Smith so we can go to GDRA. He doesn’t answer his phone but I head that way anyway. He’s not home. He finally calls me back to say that there is a sign up sheet for the lift and that he’s at an autocross. I say it’s cool and hop in Stinky to go for a drive. I make a big loop and wind up out by Kevin's place. Oh, he had called while I was out in the Seven but my battery was dead in the phone. I called him back and stopped to show him the truck. He said he’d tell some folks about it. I went back to the shop and hopped in Mr. Wiggly to run some dinosaur juice through him as well. I filled up at the Mobile station. While pumping the gas I got a fright. I saw a dark silver F-150 with a chrome tube grille at the light. I though someone had stolen Fifi! To my relief it turned out to be an extended cab. I finished filling Mr. Wiggly and checked the mileage. Yep, still getting about eleven miles per gallon. I go for a loop similar to the one I took in Stinky but I didn’t wind up as far south this time. I park Mr. Wiggly and head for the house in Fifi. I meet Marty Smith at the gas station and he invites me to go with him to look at a fire truck he’s thinking about buying. Don’t ask me, I don’t know why. I follow him back to his place and mom calls. She’s at the airport about to head home and was wondering if I'd be available to drive my sister back to Granbury. I said I could do that and tell Marty I'm not going to be able to go look at the fire truck. I head for the house knowing they won’t be there for another hour or so. I take a nap. They arrive and look at baskets and stuff for a bit with the lady who brought them from the airport. Finally we pile into Matilda and head for Granbury. After dropping my sister off at her house, mom and I have a Mexican dinner at Mi Familia and go home. So, with that trip in Matilda under my belt, I drove all five of my running vehicles over the weekend. I drove all but one of them, the Seven, on Sunday! Also, if you count the transmission in Stinky as a four-speed with a granny-gear low, then I drove a three-speed, a four-speed, a five-speed, and a six-speed on Sunday! Well, that’s about all I've got. I seem to have run a little long today. Perhaps I'll have something else to talk about tomorrow. We’ll see.